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Comment by philsnow | Hacker News Reader

> I don't really trust Walmart for their quality but I do trust that their stuff is genuine from the supplier/manufacturer.

I don't; Walmart courts brands, tempting them with access to thousands and thousands of stores. As soon as an irreplaceable proportion of the brand's revenue comes from Walmart, they start turning the screws, lowering the price they sell the product at, forcing the supplier to reduce costs. This often ends up with the brand producing a different product, with the same name, to sell at Walmart.

I can't find fault in any party's decisions in these scenarios; consolidation is the inevitable result of capitalism.

https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart is one example of a company that saw what was coming and refused to go along with it.

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That's still not what the commenter is talking about. The problem on Amazon is that you can buy a product that is listed as "CompanyX microSD Memory Card" and you will receive something that was not actually manufactured by CompanyX. AFAIK that will happen rarely if ever at Walmart. But yes, it's possible that CompanyX will make lower quality products in the future.

This practice isn't really unique to Walmart. You have to be wary of this at pretty much every major box store including Amazon. Target seems to have this down to a science. You have to know the exact model of the thing you want. The whole thing sucks because most of the time I would be happy to make expensive purchases direct but they don't want to make enemies of their resellers by undercutting them so they won't even price match.

Costco > Target > Walmart > Amazon is my order of trust. Costco has quality products and a great return policy but lower selection. Amazon has a good selection and browsing/searching is pretty good but the quality is unknown.

Walmart's returns section is also (deliberately?) frustrating.

Yes Amazon returns are much more streamlined. I could drop most returns off at my local Kohls. Just show the person my barcode on the phone to scan, give them the item and done in 10 seconds.

Walmart's actual return policy has always been better though. I've taken stuff there that I don't even know was purchased there and got a credit. This was some time ago so not sure if it changed, but they used to give you a few receiptless returns per year.

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